Touted as Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s “First American TV project” — although it has already aired in Britain — the police drama “Babylon” may leave some viewers wondering what exactly they’re watching when it premieres Jan. 8 on Sundance Channel.

Above-the-title names excite cable network execs, but the enterprise really depends on the story.
So what have we got here? Well, the title tells you nothing. Like recent misfires “Halt and Catch Fire,” “Turn” — and the truly misbegotten Halle Berry disaster, “Extant” — “Babylon” does not tell you what the show is about.

Part satire, part gritty cop drama, “Babylon” drops a stranger — in this case, American PR wizard Liz Garvey (Brit Marling) — into the strange land of Scotland Yard.

Brit Marling plays PR maven Liz Garvey.Dean Rogers

The police commissioner, Richard Miller (James Nesbitt), is a foul-mouthed, short-tempered egomaniac greatly in need of a spin doctor. Miller is surrounded by other foul-mouthed, short-tempered lackeys and belligerent patrolmen. Garvey’s job is to defuse controversy and promote the department, but they don’t seem much to want it.

American viewers who remember the inner workings of the police departments on “Prime Suspect” may remember how hostile these environments were to women, even one as flinty as Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren).

Because Boyle and screenwriter Jesse Armstrong seek to mine some comedy out of their set-up, the antagonism here is softened.

Segments where Garvey tries to train Miller on how to perform on camera, where he talks about his job but says absolutely nothing — “He’s a brand!” she says excitedly — are subtly amusing, but don’t have the same punch as really successful sendups like HBO’s “Veep.”

It’s the grittier parts of “Babylon” that play better and immediately connect the viewer with this foreign world.

When a young cop named Warwick (Nick Blood) kills a suspect with a Taser, the department is necessarily on edge — but scenes of the cop at home, decking a delivery boy who knocks on his door, show that the stress of doing his job is really taking its toll.

Likewise, when another officer, Robbie (Adam Deacon), flunks a training exercise because he won’t shoot an armed female suspect, it’s no laughing matter: the kid’s future is on the line.

This is another way of saying the show’s “comedy” is not as well-developed as its drama.

“Babylon” has the obligatory scene of the girls on the force getting blotto at a pub — and one amusing scene where Garvey makes a late-night booty call that takes an illegal turn — but, in general, the two worlds of this series do not happily co-exist.

American series give their characters anywhere from 12 to 24 episodes to go through a narrative arc to see what they’re really made of. Season 1 of “Babylon” has only six episodes, so I don’t anticipate great things.